European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) clarified its timeline when the European authority would un-ground the Boeing 737 MAX, following the Federal Aviation Administration‘s (FAA) un-grounding of the jet.
EASA indicated that it would first publish a Proposed Airworthiness Directive (AD), which is dedicated for the public to comment on the issue. The proposed AD is set to go out sometime in November 2020, an EASA spokesperson confirmed to AeroTime News.
However, public consultation will last 28 days. During the period, everyone can comment on the proposed AD. Subsequently, the authority will have to look and respond to the comments, and only then publish the final directive, essentially un-grounding the Boeing 737 MAX.
“So, the timing for that is somewhere around the end of 2020 or early-2021,” the spokesperson told AeroTime News in an email. “This publication will constitute the un-grounding for Europe from the EASA side.”
EASA joined Transport Canada (TC) and Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC) on clarifying that they would not follow the lead of the FAA, and instead, look at 737 MAX individually. The FAA un-grounded the Boeing 737 MAX on November 18, 2020, following a 20 month long period of no commercial activity for the aircraft.
